


Multiplicity

by orphan_account



Category: BioShock Infinite
Genre: F/M, Lutecest, not that i particularly mind or anything, otp: chin up, still selfcest though, technically, technically it's not incest
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-04-04
Updated: 2013-04-07
Packaged: 2017-12-07 10:19:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,313
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/747397
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What price would you pay to meet the one person who, above all else, understood you better than anyone?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> this is part one of a multichaptered fic centering around rosalind and robert, from their meeting onwards. parts of this will be slightly au-ish, since i'm taking some liberties to fill in blanks for their backstories and also because i'm not so knowledgeable about science-y stuff. i know it might start out a little slow but i swear to god the pace will quicken later on!  
> thank you so much for reading!

It started like this.

The clock had tolled midnight nearly an hour ago—or more, but Rosalind hadn’t bothered to keep count. She had been awake nearly thirty hours, and the familiar ghost of fatigue ached in every bone, pulled at her eyes and unsteadied her normally precise to the point of fault hands, and yet sleep was still the dream of a distant future. Sleep, she thought, was but a privilege afforded to those dull of mind. Twelve empty coffee cups were stacked haphazardly on Rosalind’s desk, and usually such untidiness would drive her mad, but she could barely notice now. There was nothing in the universe quite as important as this instant, and now she was quaking not from exhaustion but exhilaration. This was it, this was her moment.

Every night before this spent in the laboratory until dawn, the lack of sleep, the skipping of meals and lack of social contact, the loneliness—all of it, all the good parts and the bad were all worth it if this were to be her moment of triumph. Her mother’s nagging voice in the back of her mind, the one that only existed to cast doubt on all her dreams and aspirations, diminished her intelligence and denounced her accomplishments, was utterly silent now. Rosalind’s fingers fumbled at the focus of the microscope, not daring to let another breath escape her body until she was sure, so sure she’d stake her life on it. She had poured her mind, body, and soul into this research—as much as she disliked the man, part of her remained thankful Comstock had believed in her enough to provide her the funding. It wasn’t like she had much choice in her benefactors; despite her utter brilliance, much of the scientific community still balked at the idea that a woman was as smart as any of them, if not even smarter.

There—there—

There it was. Rosalind stared long and hard, completely frozen for a few moments before starting to pinch hard at her arms, unsure of whether this was a dream or reality. If she were to wake up in bed at this moment, in her childhood home in Boston with her door only a few feet down from her mother’s, still only seventeen and dreaming of university instead of finishing school—god, she’d kill herself. Shock ran the course of her body like electricity as the realization dawned on her that it was real, the particle everyone told her didn’t exist, the one she’d drawn up dozens of hypotheses over and yet no one listened, no one came to see her experiments, no one was here now. This discovery was all hers, and not even her mother could take that away now.

It was simply beautiful. There were no words lesser or greater she could fathom to describe it. Of course, she was entirely sure exactly what she was seeing, but yet it was like a child staring upon the magnificent artworks of the ancient Greeks, or the masters of the Renaissance—for her lack of complete understanding, she still inherently knew how gorgeous, how monumental this was. Still shaking, Rosalind pulled over a chair, taking a moment to sit and thread her fingers through her hair. She was freezing, and there was a shawl across the room but she wasn’t quite sure she could yet muster the strength to pull herself up on her legs again to grab it. No one had ever discovered anything quite like this before in history, and yet—here was the evidence, under the lense of a microscope in her dinky little lab in the basement of Comstock’s church.

Rosalind took a moment to breathe. She closed her eyes and allowed herself to take in the stale, musty air, and for a split moment she allowed herself to wish there were someone else here to revel in this discovery with her, someone to shake her and cheer and tell her she was brilliant—

Stop, she told herself. It wasn’t as if she particularly needed another person’s gratification. Quickly, Rosalind cast the thought out of her mind—she had been on her own with her endeavors her entire life, and by now she knew she was all the company she ever needed. Early on she had learned she couldn’t rely on the praise of others; she would recognize her own accomplishments, even if no one else would. Taking a determined breath, she pulled herself up on her feet again and allowed herself another glimpse at her discovery.

The method she had developed for viewing the particle, which she had aptly named the Lutece field, was still in the highly experimental stages. This posed a problem—though Rosalind knew she could not study the particle without using it, she had no idea what effect it would have on herself or her equipment. Nevertheless, this seemed like a small price to pay for her life’s work. She observed the rays of light emitting from the particle—the only way she had been able to make it visible in the first place—her body still tense, her mind still slightly numb from her own shock. Fumbling around on her desk, she managed to find her journal and a spare pen, quickly writing down everything she could observe. The work didn’t just stop here—she still had a million more experiments to run, more theories to postulate, more to discover…

A theory; for every new scientific advancement made, the workload of the founding scientist increased exponentially.

It was halfway through her initial notes that it happened; truth be told, she almost took no notice to begin with, and she would have missed it entirely if she had, say, blinked at the wrong time, or glanced away for even just a second. She would have missed the slight flickering of the rays, a tiny waver of light that she knew couldn’t be possible. Rosalind paused, eyebrows furrowing as she focused in closer and tried to discern the reasoning for the subtle flash. Theoretically, it could only have been possible if someone turned the Lutece field off, and she had been nowhere near the switch when—

The thought barely had time to process in her mind before Rosalind sprang up once more and raced to the switch, grasping the mechanism in her hand and shutting it off. Once more, she felt that strange sensation of electricity flowing through every nerve in her body; not from true electrical shock, but again from sheer excitement. She wasn’t entirely sure yet what this exactly meant, but there were a few theories in place already. There wasn’t a moment wasted before turning the machine back on again—if there had, it would ruin the entire exercise. She nearly tripped over her long, billowing skirts as she dashed back to her microscope, and she apprehensively took another look at the mysterious particle. It was still beaming just as ever, just as it had been before it flickered. Yet she waited—here she could wait all day, deprive herself of another twelve hours of sleep if need be, just to see the particle repeat the strange behavior it had earlier possessed. Luckily for her, she didn’t have to wait long.

Now it was a deep curiosity that filled her more than anything else, as she watched the rays dim once more for only a fraction of a second. If the only thing that could hinder the rays was her own apparatus, then why were they flickering in and out now? Perhaps it was a mistake in her meticulous calculations—but perhaps…perhaps it was something more.

It wouldn’t do her any good to jump to conclusions now, however. Occurrences such as this required rigorous testing—whether it was a simple malfunction in her device or something completely unfathomable…now, only time could tell. Rosalind steeled herself, unable to ward away the feeling she had only just discovered the tip of the iceburg.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> omg okay some explanation for this chapter; anyone who reads this fic should know it’s going to be a little while before robert and rosalind actually meet each other. for a while it’ll mainly focus on their individual lives before they meet, and of course their conversations to each other across their own independent universes. also, this chapter is a bit longer than the last one; i feel like it was necessary to make robert’s introduction longer, as his character isn’t explored as thoroughly in the game as is rosalind’s. anyways, thank you for reading!!

No, it started like this.

Robert Lutece had always found himself strangely amicable with trains. He found that he enjoyed the hustle and bustle, the smiles and kind words of strangers that always stuck out in his mind more than the scowls and spitting mouths of others. The seats were fairly comfortable and always seemed to conform perfectly to the shape of his body, and sometimes he found he slept better on the train than he ever did in his own bed. Not to mention the staff were always so polite. It was like a moving five star hotel, and no matter how filled it was with people, Robert enjoyed the comfortable sentiment of being alone in a crowd. At this moment in time he occupied the window seat, reclined against the cushioned back of his chair as the country-side passed him by. Legs crossed, his foot tapped to the beat of music entirely in his own head. Yes, he thought to himself as he felt the relaxing gaze of a spring day’s sun shine upon his face. This has to be the best place on earth.

In his left hand he held a tiny leather-bound journal—red, with gold binding, and a silk ribbon attached to keep his place. It was strange—no matter how much he wrote in the journal, he never seemed to find himself running out of pages. Not that Robert was complaining; in fact, he enjoyed the money he saved on his strange little never-ending book. Within the pages held sketch upon sketch, words upon words—diagrams of his theories, thought experiments he never intended to follow through with, sometimes he even just scrawled fleeting thoughts about the inane inside. In his right hand, a pen, and accompanied by a blank page he let his mind run free. To him, there was nothing more comforting, more satisfying than a blank page—a space that was his, where anything his mind dared to dream about was possible. Of course, most of the time what he dreamed about ended up being reality one way or another…not that it mattered. What was impossible in this reality could only be commonplace in the next. And for what he dreamed of now…well, he doubted he could ever find such a thing here, in this world.

Robert wasn’t of the arrogant sort—he didn’t find himself to be excessively proud, though he often took credit where credit was due. However, lately…he couldn’t shake the feeling something was amiss in his life. Tilting his head slightly, he frowned. He lightly stroked the nib of his pen over the smooth lined paper, roughly sketching out the shape of a face. What he wanted was an equal. Sometimes, being the smartest person in the room was exhausting. Never could he share his innermost thoughts with someone who truly understood. When he was but a boy, he would ramble on to his mother about everything he read in any book he could get his hands on, and even then everything he said went right over her head. She was a well meaning woman, and of course, she supported him in all his dreams and accomplishments, but—

“Ticket, sir?”

Robert blinked, broken from his reverie and still slightly in a daze. He shook his head a little and coughed, looking up at the boarding officer with furrowed brows. He did this far too often—that was, become lost in his dreams, caught in a labyrinth of thoughts he had no hope of escaping from on his own. Fumbling around his pocket of his coat, he pulled out a crumpled ticket and presented it to the boarding officer. With a curt nod of the head, the man was off, and once again Robert was left alone with his journal.

He stared down at the face he’d lightly traced into his journal, brushing his fingers gently over the surface as to not smudge the fresh ink. It looked like no one he knew, and yet it held a strange sense of familiarity to him—perhaps now Robert was just desperate, perhaps he was going absolutely mad and was beginning to regard scribbles as friends to shred any possibility of doubt. As these thoughts passed through his mind, he couldn’t help but ask himself; am I being completely ridiculous? Should all that I have right now truly be enough for me?

It wasn’t as if there was anything in his life he was particularly lacking in many other areas. There was no way Robert was about to deny that he’d been fairly well off most of his life, as he had never been hungry or in want of anything as he grew. In fact, right now as he was returning to his personal private laboratory at Columbia University, he was about to make enormous gains on innovative new research. In the laboratory, Robert was sovereign—there was no one else in the entire scientific department at Columbia who could rival his exactitude, the detail of his observations and his immense patience as he repeated experiment after experiment. No one else was quite as competent, and the more he worked and the more he discovered, more students flocked to his labs to watch him work. Quickly, ‘Lutece’ became a common enough name within scientific circles, particularly physicist ones—no one had been able to quite believe such a young man achieved quite the sense of success he did in the lab.

At this thought, Robert smiled to himself. He couldn’t help it, he’d carved himself out a niche where many, many others had failed before him. The feeling of accomplishment for how far he’d come was oddly comforting.  
Robert, knowing he was nearing his destination, looked up to once more glance through the window as more familiar land marks began to roll into view. It was then that he saw the figure in the window’s reflection, and at the realization this person was seated just across from him, he whipped around in a state of utter bewilderment. There sat a young girl—nineteen, perhaps, twenty at the most—and sitting here now he certainly couldn’t deny how attractive she was, doe brown eyes and white blonde hair, a demure and strangely innocent smile splayed across her heart shaped face, but somehow that seemed to be what unnerved him about her the most.  
“Hello,” he began, casting her a polite glance. The girl let out a small, tinkling laugh, and Robert thought it had to have approximately the same pitch as an infant crying.

“I’m ever so pleased to make your acquaintance, sir,” She said. Her voice had a strange, soft drawl to it; whether it was intentional or just naturally that way, he couldn’t surmise. “Pardon my intrusion, but I saw you over here all alone and I thought perhaps you’d enjoy another soul to talk to? I do hope I’m not being a bother.”

Robert hesitated. During all the train voyages he’d undergone thus far in his life, no one had ever introduced themselves to him quite like this before. The question was, why did she find him so intriguing? Moreover, who exactly was she? He closed shut his little book and placed it in his coat’s pocket, sticking the pen behind his ear as an afterthought as he cleared his throat.

“Not at all, no,” He said. Of course, that was a bit of a lie; he much preferred the time to think on his own on his rides, as at the university he was constantly being followed by professors or students dying to ask him questions. “Aren’t you with someone? It seems a tad dangerous for a lady such as yourself to ride the train alone.” She paused for a moment, her smile softening and eyes sparking as she looked down to her lap and twisted a blue lace handkerchief in her petite hands.

“I believe I’m quite capable of protecting myself, thank you. I’m visiting my brother at the university—Columbia University, that is.” She said, looking up at him again with her head tilted slightly. “You’ve heard of it, haven’t you? Of course you have, you’re Robert Lutece—my brother told me nobody can stop talking about you, the great physicist.” At this, Robert found himself slightly taken aback as he felt a slight pink tinge arise to his face. He didn’t really expect to get recognized on the train, of all places.

“That I am, miss,” Robert said, nodding slightly. “Does your brother work in the physics department, perchance? Perhaps we have met before.”

“I’m sure. He’s a laboratory technician, actually. He’s worked with you on some of your more famous experiments,” She said, and at this she smiled again, an almost playful look crossing her face. “So tell me, Mr. Lutece—have you proved the existence about that theoretical particle yet? Everyone’s anticipating it, and I have every hope you won’t disappoint.” What? Robert furrowed his eyebrows and looked at the girl oddly. Not that he had any particular problem with women taking an interest in the sciences, but he’d hardly ever come across one himself before. He had a feeling it had been this brother of hers who had discussed his private research with her, and he made a note to himself to figure out which technician in particular was an avid gossip upon his return.

“I’m quite confident that I will be successful, actually,” Robert said. “I project that I’ll have proved my hypothesis within the next week, precisely. All I need is to put a few finishing touches into some experimental technology I’ve been tinkering with.” He wasn’t exactly about to spill all the details with some girl on the train whose name he didn’t even know, but the girl seemed fairly pleased with his answer, anyways; this time she leaned in close, her eyebrows raised and eyes wide.

“You must let me see,” Her voice was soft, hurried, insistent. “This discovery will change the course of science forever, won’t it? Please, I need to—“

“No,” He said, short and firm. Already, he could see this conversation heading down the path to trouble. “I’m sorry, miss, but I simply can’t allow you in the laboratory. You have no training, no experience of being around such equipment. It would simply be a hazard, to both you and to my work.” The girl’s expression quickly turned to anger, however short lived it was; a moment later she slumped back in her seat, a tiny sigh escaping her as she turned to look out the window.

“I suppose you’re right, Mr. Lutece,” She said. Now the tone of her voice was almost dull, lifeless compared to before. “I believe we’re pulling into the station now, actually. I suppose it’s best we part ways.” Upon taking a look out the window himself, Robert could see that she was right. Crowds of people were now in view, waiting for the passengers of the train to emerge in only a few moments now. Robert looked back at the girl and couldn’t help but feel to some extent sorry for her; perhaps if things were different, she could be a technician working under him—clearly, getting to see this particle was very important to her. However, he couldn’t waste too much time on such thoughts—Robert Lutece was in a hurry to return to his domain, to his life’s work and all the promise it held for him. Nevertheless, he did hesitate for a moment as they both stood, waiting for their turn to exit the train.

“I’m afraid I didn’t catch your name, miss,” he said. The girl, only barely at the height of his shoulders, didn’t even bother to look up at him.

“Charlotte Gabler,” She said.

And as they finally unboarded, Robert did not care to give the girl a second thought.


End file.
